


One Man Among Many - The Memoir of a Layabout, Turned Soldier, Turned Sergeant, by Rufus Cogburn

by lovinglydull



Category: Infinite Sea Series (Interactive Fiction)
Genre: Gen, Memoirs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-04-04 10:25:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 3,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14018217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovinglydull/pseuds/lovinglydull
Summary: I had the idea to write the story of an enlisted man in the Royal Dragoons, and this is the result.





	1. Foreword

**Author's Note:**

> I want to start out by saying that Paul Wang, aka Cataphrak, has created an engaging and imaginative world that I enjoy, and that he is highly committed to his craft and damn good at it.
> 
> I had the dumb idea, considering you can write the memoirs of your MC in Sabers of Infinity and Guns of Infinity, to make the memoirs of a common soldier. And even though I am chronically unsure of my talent at writing, it seems more than a few liked it. Hence, up it goes onto AO3.
> 
> I hope you enjoy Cogburn's sarcasm, self-deprecation, and understated cynicism.

You’ve likely seen this particular volume, bound as it is in a less spectacular way compared to the heady tomes looming above it, like unto the Saints among a lowly commoner. Or maybe you didn’t. Perhaps this is in the dust heap somewhere and you, my dear reader, have picked through looking for something of value and instead found this. Before you likely consign this back to the midden, may I introduce myself: Rufus Cogburn, Sergeant of the Royal Dragoons, son of a clockmaker inheriting none of the dexterity and mental acuity of his father. One man among many. A body among thousands.

Now that we’ve exchanged pleasantries, you’re free to put the book down and never see it again. The memoirs of an officer and gentleman of the blood, full of dash and daring, are likely more suitable for those who wish to put themselves in the shoes of a hero. Though I would dispute an enlisted man – being one of the many thrown headlong into a whirlwind of steel and fire – is just as heroic as the men of the blood moving us about like pieces on a Quie board, my own tale is one mostly of shedding what litle vestiges of innocence I once had, and having to confront the horrible man I’ve become while trying to juggle the demands of being the middleman between the officers above me, and the men who trust me to keep them alive.

If that seems shameful, rest assured I buried my shame in a ditch in Antar on a hot summer day. But if the personal journey of a broken man who’s reached his peak is your cup of tea, read on, dear reader.


	2. Various Excerpts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A good deal of the writing was improvisational and off-the-cuff, with the excerpts being the best example. Many of them were thought up only seconds before being committed to text. While I usually don't go for a stream-of-consciousness style for my writing, it was both a fun idea I wanted to share with others and a fun experiment with writing.

“Since I didn’t grow up on a farm, and my family lacked the need for any ready source of transportation, it was my first time on a horse. I once saw a sixteen year old boy with a throat condition try Antari potato wine for the first time. The ensuing spluttering, coughing and gasps for breath were far more dignified than what happened on that practice field, and I’ll end it there.”

 

"Even the most yellow of bellies is turned into a bravo and gallant when you pour enough alcohol into it. All the men shouted out their desires as if they couldn’t be heard: Castillo wished for a four course meal and a lovely gal to warm his bed, Whitehill wished to show his family they were wrong about him (in rather rude words), Lopez wished to provide for his own family, and start one of his own. I shouted, like the dullard I am, ‘No higher reward than honor, no greater glory than service!’  
That certainly cued the cheers.

I didn’t have the heart to go back on those words and say the only reason I wasn’t in the Engineers for a leisurely ride and weighty salary was because I narrowly failed the qualifying exams."

 

"Compared to the events preceding it, the dawning of a new year in Antar was uneventful. Sergeant Valdez was trimming his impressive whiskers in a hand mirror when he asked me simply, ‘Corporal, does that look like the first thaw of spring to you?’

I took a good look out of the widow and replied, ‘I suppose it is.’  
A year away from family, friends and home? I suppose it is."

 

"Huxley was a wiry youth, energetic and intelligent. How he kept sneaking out of our camp was a secret to me, but his frequent absences (to meet a paramour on the outskirts of Noringia, I discovered later) were quite definite breaches of professionalism. But what the partisans did to him was excessive, to say the least.

According to second hand accounts, his body was found, throat cut, secured by his ankles over one of the posts on the pier, looking out towards the sea. Fingernails, tongue and several teeth were missing.

The sergeants didn’t have trouble enforcing curfew after that."


	3. A conversation with Gerome

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I built up the concept of Sergeant Gerome Valdez, briefly seen in the excerpts beforehand, as a good leader and a good man. The "Father to His Men" type. I honestly wish I fleshed him out more in the text before killing him off, but to be fair, I believe Cogburn would have wished to know him better as well.
> 
> I also wanted his death to contrast with a very well-known death in the series. That character in question dies in a glorious charge that exemplifies what it means to be a great soldier. Valdez is anticlimactically shot through the head as a battle begins.

I know you’re all eager for me to get on to Blogia. There’s something about human beings, some facet utterly fascinated with bloodshed and failure. But before I begin, let me tell you of an event right before the battle.

Sergeant Valdez had summoned me before we were to head out of camp. He took a good, long look at me before simply nodding and saying, "Cogburn."

Valdez had never dropped the Corporal in his address to me. Never.  
Taken back, I meekly replied, "Sergeant?"

"You’re to be a Sergeant after this, Cogburn. One way or another."

"I don’t understand, sir." I truly didn’t.

"I recommended you. You’ve been a Lance Corporal for two years, a Corporal for three. It’s about time you pulled more weight. You haven’t distinguished yourself in battle, but being a Sergeant isn’t about distinction." Something in his face tightened, and he turned away from me. "It’s about doing what must be done."

I snapped a salute, face solemn. "I shall do my best to live up to your praise, sir."

"One more thing, Cogburn." Sergeant Valdez held a key out to me. "After the battle, ask for my tent. I left a chest in there, money for my daughter Rosa, so she can go to school in Aetoria. The package is already addressed, you just need to send it with the mail tomorrow."

I shook my head, and attempted to give the key back. “Sir. It’s best that you send it yourself.”

He would not take the key, and turned once more over the hill. "Get ready for battle, Cogburn. Tonight I toast to your promotion with Saint Talbot."

I thought he was being overly fatalistic, until a pistol shot struck him through the eye later that day and he fell dead beside me. If you’re reading this, Camilla, here’s a reminder your husband was a great man possessed of the two traits of the ideal soldier. The intuition to see his own death coming, and the dignity to face it standing up. Saint Talbot couldn’t ask for a better drinking partner.


	4. A Crossroads

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the biggest hint that Cogburn is better than he thinks he is, and the closest he ever gets to admitting it. I meant for it to be a powerful monologue, and it's one of the few writings on that front where I feel like I definitely succeeded.

Better men than I lay dead on the field. Although, a quick note about Castillo, who had volunteered for the charge: according to one of the few survivors of the “Death Charge of the Dragoons” he had lived through the inital onslaught, and had lay wheezing pitifully on the ground for hours with a lance head in his gut until blood loss claimed him. A man far better than I, who died a pitiful death all the same.

With the Death Charge melting under the steel of the Church Hussars, it came down to one hundred men in the crumbling ruins of a castle to keep the enemy’s cavalry at bay. There would be no reinforcements. There would be no relief. There was no better way, no second option. It was madness, but it was also reality.

The insanity didn’t end there. Some daft bastard of a baron was left in charge, and he gave the last order I would expect: any man who didn’t want to stay, didn’t have to.

It was the kind of crossroads a man sees only a few times in his life. Almost certain death down either path. And it demands a simple question: who are you?

I’ll tell you who I was. I was Corporal Rufus Cogburn of the Royal Dragoons, serving under Sergeant Gerome Valdez. I was a man who barely failed to make the cut for the Engineers. I was the only son of a watchmaker, who couldn’t be more disappointed if he tried. I was twenty four years old. I was still unmarried, though I had my eye on a freeholder girl back in Noringia. I was scared, tired, and increasingly aware of the death that was encroaching upon us all.

And I was not a bloody coward.


	5. Picnic with the Saints

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I rushed this one a bit too much. Blogia should be a somber event with much thought given, but I sped through it like the rest, and the quality suffered as a result.
> 
> The only thing I edited of this scene, however, is that the "Marcus Valdez" mentioned earlier was correctly changed to "Gerome." One day, maybe, I will revisit this with a more matured and refined mind...
> 
> Or maybe not.

It wasn’t just Saint Talbot opening a bottle of the finest spirits that day. It seemed like the Saints were all throwing a party, and we were all invited.

And they were rather insistent hosts.

Sergeant Gerome Valdez was serving in the King’s Dragoons for ten years, as a way of providing for his wife. He was promoted to Sergeant just before being deployed in Antar, but his attachment to his men kept him from seeking promotion. He died straight away, a pistol bullet from one of the Hussars striking him through the left eye, and cracking his left temple as it tried to exit. Saint Talbot greeted him with a fine bottle of spirits.

Corporal Alonso Whitehill was the third of five brothers. He saw more worth to himself than tilling a field, even though he had a reputation of being a thug and ne’er-do-well in his home. He joined the Royal Dragoons to make a difference, and to distinguish himself from the pall cast upon him by his family. He leapt underneath a Church Hussar’s horse and drove his saber into its guts, breaking rank but also halting a charge at the gates. Saint Jerome’s playing a hand of Tassenwerd with him as I write.

Lance Corporal Raymond Vega wasn’t from my squadron, but I know from his fellows that he had come from nothing. His only talent was soldiery, and he was damn fine at it; he had been serving with distinction in every battle up to this point, but was deemed too temperamental for an NCO position. He took a spear in the diaphragm, and cut down his killer afterwards.

Saint Joshua scooped him up as he fell, and opened his maw to welcome more.

The deaths keep coming. I don’t even remember my own actions, only the death that surrounded me, permeated into a thick stench in the air. The only other thing I remember is nightfall as the enemy retreated. I stood, covered in wet powder and blood that was mostly not mine, suffering a cut across the ribs but otherwise only exhausted. My saber had broken in the scuffle and I didn’t even notice.

I simply looked to the ground, to the bodies scattered this way and that, and limped to the nearest officer in an attempt to report in.


	6. More Various Bits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I didn't feel like making a detailed vignette in the entirety of Cogburn's life. Which is probably a good thing, because I feel like if you saw his memoirs in their entirety, they would probably be rather boring.
> 
> Regardless, these excerpts are very useful when it comes to packing what would be chapters of information into bite-sized chunks.

“The new blood called me the Old Man. I have no idea why, to this day. A thirty-two year old conscript even said it to me once. Maybe growing out my chin whiskers as a little tribute to Valdez made me look far older than I seemed. Maybe Blogia had weathered me more than I realized. Maybe I simply carried myself like a tired, beaten old man. It could be any number of reasons, but the point is that at twenty-five years of age, I had become an old man.”

“I had come under the command of a man whom I will simply call ‘Captain Bastard.’ Believe it or not, this nickname is a compliment. I had many bad things to say about him back then, but the only thing I have to say now is a cold, hard fact.”

“Being assigned to Captain Bastard’s command was like trying to scrub yourself clean with a whetstone. Unpleasant.”

“I thank the horrible disease I contracted earlier for the several-day-long string of sick I had. Otherwise, suicidal fool I am, I would have rushed in with the Forlorn Hope and Major Bastard would have had his promotion atop my corpse.”

“Wintering in Kharangia was only slightly worse than seeing the effects of banefire on a human body up-close. It got so cold at night that I’m surprised I came out with all of my bits attached, and it was so cramped in our sleeping quarters I wasn’t sure if the terrible smell next to me was a corpse or if it was Jenkins, who I might add bathed only slightly more frequently than Valdez shaved.”

"The First Battle of Kharangia went far better than expected, but considering I was drunk on liquor I had managed to sneak past the prying eyes of the junior officers for the majority of it, the best details I can give you are these:

We had won, and directly after the battle I re-enacted the first time I had ridden a horse on the practice fields back in Cunaris."


	7. So I told him

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One thing that didn't come up too often in disvussions of the war is how it affected the common folk, or how they saw it. For people back home, it was likely that they didn't ses the horror or necessity of the conflict. But when you're deep inside Antar, a nation that treats anyone not carrying the Bane as only slightly above a pack animal and regularly sent thousands of them to their deaths without a second thought, it was clear that King Miguel's War wasn't a war you wanted to lose.

Corporal came up to me after drill, a few hours before Kharangia. I forget his name. Vega strikes me the most, so Vega he is. As much as I forget his name, I can’t forget that conversation. Even now I feel like I can hear every word.

He asked me, “Sergeant Cogburn. Anything on your mind? You seem troubled.”

There was something on my mind. So I told him.

"Corporal. There is something on my mind. And as much as I say to myself ‘Tierra and Victory’ I can’t get this out of my head. We’re throwing everything at Khorobirit, right? The infantry, the cavalry – I even hear the navy’s involved. I keep thinking, what if it’s not enough? And always, I get my answer. The answer is, if it’s not enough, we die Corporal. The answer is, we will be beaten to death by the enemy if we do not win. We will be impaled, trampled, torn apart by dogs. And they won’t stop there. Brothers, sons, fathers and uncles will be put to stake and club and fire. Sisters, daughters, mothers and aunts will be raped, beaten, and finally have their throats slit to stop the screaming. And they’re the lucky ones. The unlucky many will be subjected to slavery, living a life lower than cattle. Freedom and opportunity replaced by the whip, the brand, and the impaling stakes.

And if we win? None of that happens. Which is why, more than anything, I keep telling myself 'Tierra and Victory.’"

Vega didn’t have anything else to say to me after that.


	8. Tierra and Victory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Tierra and Victory" is a common battlecry uttered by the Royal Tierran Army throughout Guns and Sabers. But, just like Cogburn's view on the war in general would be different from that of a baneblooded officer, so too would his view of a beloved cliché. For a baneblooded officer, Antari victory means the likely purgation of the male portions of your house. For a baneless soldier, it means everyone you ever know and every descendent they will have will be enslaved, possibly forever.
> 
> Though the existential threats are similar, someone born in a nation where the freedom to say, decorate your own house or plant your own garden is taken for granted, would see the layter as absolutely horrific.

“Tierra and Victory.” It started as a hollow piece of motivational drivel for men who were born more fortunately than me. And now that the war’s over, it still has that same hollow ring. But on the fields of Kharangia, as every nerve and muscle was wound tight like clock springs, I realized that words don’t have static meanings. “I’m fine” sounds differently, depending on whether you’re having a lovely summer picnic or are knuckle-deep in a man’s ribcage. Likewise, “Tierra and Victory” was no longer mere motivation.  
As the battle raged and I stayed, still in reserve, I realized it was a motivation not due to any sentiment, but due to fact. Tierra and Victory. One follows the other. One supports the other.

One dies without the other.

The order is given. We rode down the hill in defense of the Fifth of Foot. And as the shells rained down in the distance, I knew that Tierra and Victory was the only option. The alternative was unthinkable.  
The fighting was hard, and from the nigh-endless flashes of the enemy, I was briefly teleported back to the ruins of Castle Blogia. Things had changed since then, of course. In addition to coming at the enemy this time around, I had a horse, ample supplies, a few gray hairs, and the kind of fury you’d expect from a wounded animal fighting from the corner. More than a few of the lads had dinner with the Saints in the initial charge, and there were no shortage of men coming afterward in time for dessert.  
As for the Old Man, I walk with a slight limp after a musket ball caught me in the leg and only barely grazed my femur. A nudge to the right, I’d be carrying myself on crutches for the rest of my days. I had the bullet extracted, and it’s sitting on my desk as I write. I kept it for a reason that surely was profound when I decided, but I can’t remember now.  
One thing that was apparent, the outcome of the battle was nothing like Blogia. There was uncertainly when the fighting stopped, and nowhere near the decimation that had occurred on that fateful day. The Dragoons were ragged, but in the end, many of us would be able to go home to our families later.

And, most importantly, it was the battle that had given us those two crucial elements of our continued existence: Tierra and Victory.


	9. Afterword

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katya, in case it isn't hinted clearly enough, is the freeholder girl mentioned way back in "A Crossroads." It is not to be. And honestly, given his personality, Cogburn is on the path to dying alone.
> 
> Why would he want this to be his last memoir? Because honestly, he'd probably prefer a boring life after all that he's been through.

I was a changed man after that battle. A month before the Second Battle of Kharangia, I was a shamble of a man. I was a drunken, foul-mouthed, argumentative sod that could barely get out of my bedroll in the morning. A month after, I was still all of these things, but I drank far less and was in a better mood. I made a vow to swear off spirits if I lived through the war, and the war seemed to have its ending nigh. It says something that the last three years before we found peace were as anticlimactic as the first year of the war.

I would, thanks to my relatively good behavior at the end of the war, have a position in the Royal Dragoons in peacetime. No promotion yet, I think my earlier conduct might have put a black mark against me. Never married that freeholder girl, either. I guess I can only keep someone waiting for so long. At the least, I hear women love a man with war stories to share.

I suppose, since I have nothing else to speak of, I might as well say a few acknowledgements.

To my parents, who I still fear I disappoint to this day, I give all the thanks I can.

To Katya back in Noringia, may you have a good life, and may you have more love than I could have given you.

To Valdez, Castillo, Whitehall, and all the other noble men at the side of the Saints, I hope you are all happy, and that it will be a long time yet until we are reunited. I vow that your memories will not melt like the first thaw of spring. I will fight to my last to ensure you are not numbers on a sheet.

To the families grieving throughout Tierra, I have no words that will cure your pain. All I have is the fact that those you love died preserving something they saw as more precious than themselves.

To the twenty thousand poor souls brought over from Antar, may your new life be better than the one you left behind.

And to myself, Sergeant Cogburn of the Royal Dragoons, may you live long enough to be less of a scoundrel.

Will this be the last memoir I write? I hope it is.


End file.
